We have discussed (1), (2), and (3);[70] for an example under (4) we have cited the practices of American Indians.[71] It is probable that about now (at the stage indicated in (4) above), what is known as the real werewolf superstition (that of a frenzied, rabid manwolf) began to fully develop. The man in wolf-skin was already a lurking thief or enemy, or a destroyer of human life. To advance from this stage to the werewolf frenzy, our primitive man must have seen about him some exhibition of such a frenzy, and some reason for connecting this frenzy particularly with, say the wolf. He did see insane persons, and the connecting link would be the crazy or mad wolf (or dog, as the transformation was usually into a wolf or dog,[72]) for persons bitten by it usually went mad too.[73] The ensuing frenzy, with the consternation it occasioned, soon appealed to certain primitive minds as a good means of terrorizing others. Of these mad ones some no doubt actually had the malady; others honestly believed they had it and got into a frenzy accordingly; others purposely worked themselves up into a frenzy in order to impose on the uninitiated.[74] Later, in the Middle Ages, when the nature of the real disease came to be better understood, the werewolf superstition had become too firmly fixed to be easily uprooted.
We have discussed (5), (6), (7), and (8) in the notes.[75] As further examples of the development into fabulous story,[76] we may cite any of those stories in which the wild werewolf, or animal-man is represented as roaming the land, howling, robbing, and tearing to pieces men and beasts, until he resumes his human form. Thus an early scout in animal garb would be obliged to live on food he found on his way, and later fabulous report would represent him as himself when in disguise possessing the attributes of the animal he represented, and tearing to pieces man and beast. For such an account see Andree,[77] concerning what eyewitnesses reported of the wild reveling over corpses of the hyena-men of Africa. Naturally the uninitiated savage who witnessed such a sight would become insane, or at least would spread abroad such a report as would enhance the influence of the hyena-men far and wide. Some savages, as in Africa,[78] came to regard any animal that robbed them of children, goats or other animals, as a witch in animal form;[79] just as the American Indians ascribe to evil spirits death, sickness and other misfortunes.
We can see how at first the man in animal disguise or an animal robe would go quietly to work, like the Pawnee scout;[80] how though, as soon as the element of magic enters in, he would try to keep up the illusion. At this stage, when the original defensive measure had become tainted with superstition, men would go about in the night time howling and holding their vile revels.[81] Andree,[82] narrates how a soldier in Northeast Africa shot at a hyena, followed the traces of blood and came to the straw hut of a man who was widely famed as a magician. No hyena was to be seen, only the man himself with a fresh wound. Soon he died, however the soldier did not survive him long. Doubtless one of the magician class was responsible for the death of the soldier, just as we to-day put to death the man who so violates our laws, as to become a menace to our society, or as formerly kings killed those who stood in their way; or as religious sects murder those who dissent from their faith. These magicians, supposed to be men who could assume animal form, as a matter of fact do often form a class, are greatly feared by other natives, often dwell with their disciples in caves and at night come forth to plunder and kill.[83] It is to their interest to counterfeit well, for if suspected of being malevolent, they were put to death or outlawed, like criminals to-day.[84] Their frenzies were, as said above, in some cases genuine delusions; in other cases they offered, as one may readily imagine, excellent opportunities for personal gain or vengeance.[85]
Only by instilling in their fellows a firm belief in this superstition and maintaining the sham, could the perpetrators of the outrages hope to escape punishment for their depredations, could they hope to plunder and steal with impunity.[86] So they prowled usually under the cloak of night or of the dark of the forest,[87] howled and acted like the animals they represented, hid the animal skin or blanket, if they used one,[88] in the daytime where they thought no one could find it, whereas the animal skin which was worn for defence, was put on either by day or night,[89] and one story recounts the swallowing of a whole goat, the man bellowing fearfully like a tiger while he did it.[90] Some of the transformed men claimed they could regain human form only by means of a certain medicine or by rubbing. The imposters were the criminal class of society that is still with us to-day,[91] no longer in werewolf form, but after all wolves in human dress, each maintaining his trade by deception and countless artifices, just as did the werewolf of old. Not unlike these shams are those of the American negro, who in church, when “shouting,” that is, when stirred up by religious fervor, inflicts blows on his enemy who happens to be in the church, of course with impunity; for he is supposed to be under some outside control, and when the spell has passed off, like some of the delusionists mentioned,[92] claims not to know what he (or generally she) has done. Similar also are the negro voudoo ceremonies, those of the fire-eaters, or any other sham.
The wolf disguise, or transformation into a werewolf was that most often assumed for example in Germanic lands.[93] The term wolf became synonymous with robber, and later (when the robber became an outlaw,[94]) with outlaw, the robber and outlaw alike being called wolf and not some other animal (i. e., only the wolf-man surviving to any extent) firstly, because the wolf was plentiful; and secondly, because as civilization advanced, there came a time when the wolf was practically the only one of the larger undomesticated animals that survived.[95] We can notice this in our own United States, for example in eastern Kansas, where at night coyotes and even wolves are sometimes heard howling out on the prairie near woodlands, or in the pastures adjoining farms, where they not infrequently kill smaller animals, and dig up buried ones.[96] In Prussia also it is the wolf that survives to-day. American Indians, and other savages however do not restrict the transformations to the wolf,[97] because other wild animals, are, or were till recently, abundant amongst them. As civilization advances, one by one the animal myths disappear with the animals that gave rise to them (like that connected with the mastodon);[98] or else stories of such domestic animals as the pig, white bull, dog superseded them.[99] When this stage was reached, as time went on and means of successfully coping with the brute creation became perfected, the animals were shorn of many of their terrors, and finally such stories as Aesop’s fables would arise.[100] This however was psychologically a long step in advance of our were-wolf believing peoples of an earlier period.
Up to this point the illustrations have shown that the werewolf superstition went through various stages of development. The motives for assuming wolf’s dress (or animal skins or robes), at first were purely peaceful, for protection against cold, and to secure food by acting as decoys; then it was used for personal advantage or gain by foragers (or robbers) and spies; then for purposes of vengeance;[101] later from a desire for power over others; and finally men (the professional and the superstitious) began to concoct fabulous stories which were handed down as tradition or myth, according to the psychic level of the narrator and hearer.[102]
The starting point of the whole superstition of the harmful werewolf is the disguising as some common animal by members of savage races when abroad as foragers or scouts, in order to escape detection by the enemy. Like wolves they roamed the land in search of food. As stated above,[103] later fabulous report would represent them as possessing in their disguise the attributes of the animal they impersonated,[104] and finally even of actually taking on animal form, either wholly or in part,[105] for longer or shorter periods of time. Some of the North American Indian transformation stories represent men as having only the head, hands and feet of a wolf.[106] The transformation into a werewolf in Germanic lands is caused merely by a shirt or girdle made of wolf-skin.[107] This shirt or girdle of wolf-skin of the Germanic werewolf is the survival of the robe or mantle originally disguising the entire body. It would be but a step further to represent a person as rendering himself invisible by putting on any other article of apparel, such as the Tarnkappe.[108] The stories especially in Europe were of the were-wolf rather than were-bear or other animal, because the wolf was the commonest of the larger wild animals.[109] It was the stories of the commonest animal, the wolf, which crystallized into the household werewolf or transformation tales.[110]